Misgivings

When ocean-clouds over inland hills Sweep storming in late autumn brown, And horror the sodden valley fills, And the spire falls crashing in the town, I muse upon my country's ills-- The tempest burning from the waste of Time On the world's fairest hope linked with man's foulest crime. Nature's dark side is heeded now-- (Ah! optimist-cheer dishartened flown)-- A child may read the moody brow Of yon black mountain lone. With shouts the torrents down the gorges go, And storms are formed behind the storms we feel: The hemlock shakes in the rafter, the oak in the driving keel.